The US wants to channel $1.5 billion of Muammar Gaddafi’s frozen assets towards getting Libya back on its feet. The money would be split between UN humanitarian aid, fuel for electrical plants, desalinisation plants and hospitals and will also pay the salaries of a future Libyan government. Only one country on the sanctions committee opposes the proposal –South Africa. By KHADIJA PATEL.

In the end, Gaddafi’s presidential compound fell easily, and without the promised bloodbath - thankfully. His fighters melted away after some initial resistance, leaving rebels in control. But Gaddafi himself escaped, if he was ever there, and the Libyan Revolution still has a bit more work to do before it’s indisputably in control. By SIMON ALLISON.

It was all going so well. Most of Tripoli was in rebel hands, Gaddafi besieged in the tunnels of his presidential palace, and three of his sons in rebel custody. Then Saif Gaddafi – supposed to be safely in rebel custody –turned up in the middle of the night at the government-controlled Rixos hotel, flashing V signs and telling reporters this was all nonsense. What the hell’s going on in Tripoli, and who can we trust to tell us? By SIMON ALLISON.

Author and academic Stephen Chan has some firm opinions about politics in southern Africa over the last decade or so. And he maintains South Africans can't fully understand our own history until we start paying more attention to that of our neighbours – Zimbabwe in particular. By THERESA MALLINSON.

The Colonel is out of Libya. Or he should be, if he knows what’s good for him. South Africa is a signatory country of the treaty that created the International Criminal Court. The lovely people at the ICC will want to have words with the Colonel, and South Africa will be obliged to help, so he can’t come here. Which raises the obvious question: where can the Colonel go after everyone stopped writing letters? SIPHO HLONGWANE weighs Muammar Gaddafi’s options.

At the time of this writing, Tripoli is not yet fully in rebel hands and there are still garrisons loyal to Gaddafi in various places. Brother Leader has not yet been run to ground or brought before the International Criminal Court, let alone exile – although Angola has reportedly offered to be a host. Regardless, the maneuvering over what happens next is already well underway. By J BROOKS SPECTOR.

“I’m perplexed as to where these questions come from,” international relations and cooperation minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane responded  to questions from journalists at a hastily convened press conference in Johannesburg on Monday. Dirco didn’t know where Muammar Gaddafi was, she claimed. South Africa has no plans to evacuate Brother Leader and the government is still stubbornly taking its cues on Libya from the African Union. By KHADIJA PATEL & SIPHO HLONGWANE.

It took six months and nearly 30,000 lives, but Gaddafi’s regime finally collapsed as the rebels stormed victoriously into the heart of Tripoli on Sunday night. The battle’s not over yet, with pockets of Gaddafi resistance in the capital and the fate of Brother Leader himself unknown, but the war is won. Libya belongs to the rebels now, and the world waits to see what they’re going to do with it. By SIMON ALLISON.

We don’t know why President Bingu wa Mutharika dissolved his entire cabinet, because he hasn’t bothered to tell anyone. Is he trying to meet the anti-government protestors demands, or is he just tired with maintaining the democratic façade? Either way, he’s missing the point. By SIMON ALLISON.

As the US talks up a three-pronged al-Qaeda offensive in Africa, there’s a mismatch between the rhetoric and the reality. The links between Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are tangential at best, and hardly surprising given that the violent Muslim extremist community internationally is a pretty small world. While the War on Terror rhetoric may be seductive, it won’t help us deal with these inherently local problems. By SIMON ALLISON.

UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld died in a mysterious plane crash almost exactly 50 years ago. Now new evidence has been uncovered which seems to implicate the British in his death. By REBECCA DAVIS.

It may sound like an ancient tale: two sovereign states that start an armed conflict over an insignificant speck of dirt. Not possible anymore? Think again. A tiny island in Lake Victoria is the object of a tug of war between Kenya and Uganda. By KHADIJA PATEL.

Mosquito nets treated with insecticide have been the simple solution behind the massive reduction in new malaria infection in Africa. But new research suggests that their protection might only be temporary as nature finds a way past them. By SIMON ALLISON.

Somalia might not be everyone’s first choice for a family holiday, but that’s exactly where Turkey’s PM is taking the wife and kid. The Turkish first family arrive in Mogadishu today, and bring with them R1 billion of food and supplies for famine relief. This is how to take the diplomatic initiative, and it just might represent the beginning of Turkey’s big push into Africa. By SIMON ALLISON.

After minting it in Nigeria, MTN developed an appetite for big investments in what others would consider risky countries. Iran, at the time involved in a posturing contest with the US, seemed a safe bet as a place it would finally pay the price. The Arab Spring had other ideas, however, as its interim results show. BY PHILLIP DE WET.

While the UN shuffles to defend aid to Mogadishu despite the threat of theft, a South African military aircraft will deliver 18 tons of supplies to famine victims in Somalia this week. By KHADIJA PATEL.

A massive demonstration planned for today against the rule of Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika was halted at the last minute as the UN stepped in to mediate. This is lucky for the president, who’s so unpopular at the moment that he can’t even give a bottle of beer away with causing trouble. But Mutharika’s not very good at compromise, and the demonstration organisers have stressed that mass action is still on the table. It’s not over yet. By SIMON ALLISON.

General Solomon Mujuru, Zanu-PF stalwart and one of the most powerful men in Zimbabwe, was killed in a fire that destroyed his farm house outside Harare. Although no details of the fire have emerged, his death is being treated as suspicious by the public and media, conscious of his (and his wife’s) role in the party’s internal power struggles. Politicians are falling over themselves to pay tribute, but what they’re really wondering is what this means for Zanu’s future. By SIMON ALLISON.

South Sudan’s flag was raised at the African Union for the first time on Monday. But the new country’s reception at the continental institution raises questions about just how new states can be created in Africa. The answers aren’t comforting. By SIMON ALLISON

Libya’s rebels claim to have tightened the noose on Gaddafi’s regime by taking the strategically important city of Zawiyah, just 50km west of Tripoli. Whoever controls Zawiyah controls the vital highway to Tunisia, leaving Tripoli virtually under siege, and Gaddafi exhibiting a siege mentality. It looks only a matter of time now. By SIMON ALLISON.

There are very few places where embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi could seek refuge. As he finds himself cornered in Tripoli unable to quell the wave of loyalists turning against him, South Africa seems marked to be Gaddafi’s next home. By KHADIJA PATEL.

What every one of us considers our unalienable right, to update our own Facebook page, got a young Egyptian arrested. That would be the same Facebook that, with Twitter, was the main communication channel during Egypt's rise against President Mubarak. By KHADIJA PATEL.

It's a system that has worked well for generations: Serving staff are paid a pittance, but take home cash tips from customers that, under the right circumstances, can make for a decent living. Take cash out of the equation, however, and things get tricky. By PHILLIP DE WET.

Not content with their R70,000-a-month salaries, Kenya’s MPs threw a sulk when they were told to pay tax like everyone else, threatening to cripple the government until they got what they wanted. Their bluff worked. By SIMON ALLISON.

Despite a massive naval presence in the Gulf of Aden and last week’s successful prosecution of five pirates behind the hijacking of a South African yacht, piracy is one of the world’s few booming industries in this global economic downturn. Attacks have increased over 2010, and now copycats in West Africa pose a whole new threat to international shipping. By SIMON ALLISON.

South Africa’s diplomats didn’t get much of a weekend. After a rushed three day state visit to Burundi, where Jacob Zuma went on a lovely drive with their president and promised to donate some footballs, it was back to Pretoria on Saturday where international relations and co-operation minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane met her Tanzanian counterpart, Bernard Membe. No footballs for Tanzania, but we’re not reading too much into that. By SIMON ALLISON.

To most of us Mogadishu is nothing more than nine letters on a page, an answer to a Trivial Pursuit question, a vague ethereal dusty sensation. Wasn’t it that place in that movie where they shot down the helicopter? And as indistinct as memory is, it is doubly so to think of fellow humans living, dreaming, fighting, hoping, dying there. But thanks to the incredible courage of aid workers and journalists, the factual and fantastical are made wrenchingly real for us. This is the second searing report by eNews Channel’s ROBYN KRIEL.

It’s been four months to the day since Laurent Gbagbo emerged from his presidential bunker, stripped of power, stripped of dignity, his previously resplendent military uniform reduced to a dirty white vest. Although it took months, he comprehensively lost the battle of wills – and guns – between him and his old enemy, Alassane Ouattara. And now that Ouattara’s in charge, he’s doing what it takes to make sure he stays there. By SIMON ALLISON.

With only four years to go, achieving the SADC gender protocol's goals by 2015 seems like a long shot. Now that the barometer has added an index measuring empirical data we have some hard numbers to go on, but these don't always speak to women's lived experiences. By THERESA MALLINSON.

In a ruling that might have come as a surprise to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who likes to have a little more control, the country’s high court dismissed all charges against opposition leader Kizza Besigye, leaving him free to continue his highly disruptive anti-government protests. By SIMON ALLISON.